Donations Assist Indianapolis-Area School Children Who Miss Out on
Nutritious Meals During Summer Break
Employees at Sallie Mae’s Fishers, Ind., facility raised 35,000 food
items for the Gleaners Food Bank—the largest-ever employee food drive
conducted in the food bank’s history.
Under the theme “Hunger Never Takes a Vacation,” Sallie Mae employees
rallied to help Indianapolis-area kids who over the summer miss out on
the nutritious meals they receive at school. Spirited competition
resulted in employees surpassing the original goal of 10,000 by day two
of the week-long drive.
“Sallie Mae has been a faithful friend to the food bank for nearly a
decade,” said Gleaners’ President and CEO Pamela Altmeyer. “Their
record-breaking drive came at a perfect time for Indiana’s hungry.”
Sallie Mae employees expressed a variety of reasons for participating,
including Renee La Forest, who eight years ago was the recipient of
assistance from a food bank. Her daughter was diagnosed with a brain
tumor and the single mother left her job to see her child through
treatments. Now that her daughter has recovered, La Forest rejoined the
workforce as a computer programmer at Sallie Mae. “It feels great to
give back,” she says. “I like to think that because of the Sallie Mae
food drive, there are other struggling moms out there who can put food
on their tables and send their children to sleep knowing they have been
fed.”
Gleaners Food Bank assists a poverty population of over 200,000
Hoosiers, nearly 80,000 of whom are children. The organization serves
over 400 hunger relief charities in over 20 central Indiana counties.
Since opening its doors in 1980, Gleaners has distributed over 227
million pounds of food and critical grocery products to those in need.
The nonprofit organization is the single most important source of food
for most hunger relief charities in central Indiana. In 2008, the calls
for food assistance in central Indiana increased by 45 percent, and food
stamp information requests rose 75 percent.
Sallie Mae has had a presence in Indiana for nearly 20 years and employs
approximately 1,600 Hoosiers in its Fishers facility and 2,300
statewide. Sallie Mae employees have given nearly 8,000 pounds of food
to Gleaners Food Bank over the years. From 2001-2008, The Sallie Mae
Fund, the company’s philanthropic arm, has given more than $7 million in
scholarships, grants and employee matching gifts to students and
nonprofits in Indiana.
SLM Corporation (NYSE:SLM), commonly known as Sallie Mae, is the
nation’s leading provider of saving, planning and paying for education
programs. Through its subsidiaries, the company manages $188 billion in
education loans and has 10 million student and parent customers. Through
its Upromise affiliates, the company also manages $17 billion in 529
college-savings plans, and is a major, private source of college funding
contributions in America with 11 million members and more than $475
million in member rewards. Sallie Mae and its subsidiaries offer debt
management services as well as business and technical products to a
range of business clients, including higher education institutions,
student loan guarantors and state and federal agencies. More information
is available at www.salliemae.com.
SLM Corporation and its subsidiaries are not sponsored by or agencies of
the United States of America.
Gleaners Food Bank
Debbie Wilson, 317-925-0191 x117
dwilson@gleaners.org
or
Sallie
Mae
Patricia Nash Christel, 703-984-5382
patricia.christel@salliemae.com
